SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

Our luncheon and auction was a huge amount of fun. Lanzi’s on the Lake put on a delightful lunch enjoyed by everyone, thank you Lanzi’s. Carol Reutzel and Fran Varcoe created gorgeous centerpieces for the tables and favors for everyone. Our auctioneer Terry Moeller kept everyone laughing and bidding up the items. Congratulations to Anna Johnson who won the beautiful quilt created by Ruth Ralston. Thanks to Anna Johnson, Michele Acquaro and Wanda Smith for their great efforts in organizing this event. We thank everyone for your support of our programs. Watch this column for dates of our presentations on Wildflowers and Orchids in March and April both to be held at the Northville Public Library and open to all.

Keep on eye on your houseplants now that the days are short and the sun is in short supply. A rinse every month or so for non fuzzy leaved plants or so will keep aphids and mealy bugs under control. Hard brown lumps on stems are probably scale and you’re going to have to scrape them off, they do like to cling. If you see a few leaves dropping or yellowing, don’t despair. It is most likely due to the lower humidity in our houses now that the heating season is well under way and also because of the lower light levels. Gradually the plant will get used to the new conditions. Be careful not to overwater your plants. If your potting soil doesn’t have good aeration it can hold water and be a wonderful breeding ground for fungus. Then the fungus gnats move in and if you have ever had a cloud of little black flies hovering around your soil you know what I mean. If this happens, cut down on your watering and let the plant dry between waterings. Mostly, this will solve the problem but if it doesn’t, you may need to repot with a sterilized potting mixture that is amended with perlite which gives aeration to the mix.

When the catalogs start to come in towards the end of the month get a glass of wine and sit down and plan what to add to your garden. If you are not sure that you are going to do much in your garden next year, just remember that just an hour of weeding burns around 340 calories, digging also uses about 340 calories and using a power mower uses around 300 calories. More good reasons to get out there and get our hands dirty!



Our next meeting is on December 1 at 10:00 a.m. at the Bradt Building when Janice Taylor will lead our workshop for wreath making for Christmas displays. We make wreaths for many of the public buildings in Northville and our surrounding towns. We have lunch together and after lunch we have a business meeting to wrap up this calendar year before our hiatus in January and February. On December 8 we have a party to celebrate the holidays and that is held at the Northville Public Library.

Our club partners with the Federated Garden Clubs to offer a full scholarship to cover camp tuition for one week for a student age 12-14 at the DEC program at Camp Colby in Upper Saranac Lake. Locally, recent recipients of this scholarship have been Carissa Henderson, Emily Krom, Arthur Hoffman and Megan Frasier. Students who are interested should submit a letter stating why they wish to attend the camp, along with a letter of recommendation from a teacher to us at POBox 675, Northville, NY 12134 . The deadline for applications hasn’t been announced yet but it is usually around the second week in January so get them in early.



Enjoy the holidays everyone and remember that ‘a garden is a friend you can visit anytime’.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

Jeanine Loya introduced us to the wonderful world of cactus and succulents at our last meeting. We had a wonderful presentation in the beautiful meeting room at the Northville Public Library with delightful decorations and refreshments provided by our club members, Virginia Conover, Margaret Furco and Terry Moeller. Jeanine brought many plants for show and tell and she was very generous in giving away a lot of plants for us to pot up and grow. She is an acknowledged expert in her field and it was fun to listen and learn about her subject.

There are a few clean up chores still left to do in the garden. The summer veggies will have been frosted by now and should be pulled up and put in the compost pile. We did have some instances of late blight on tomatoes and potatoes late in the season and if you had any plants affected these plants should not go in the regular compost pile. Although late blight pores are killed off by our winter freezing temperatures, they can still live on in potatoes that are left in the ground. If you had late blight try to make sure you get every small piece of potato out of the ground and next year, plan to plant the crops in a different place.

As you finish raking up the leaves, pile them up in an out of the way place and leave them for a year to make leaf mold which is a wonderful addition to the soil in our gardens. If you don’t have a place to put them, you can leave them in bags. It isn’t a good idea to pile them on the garden as is, maple leaves in particular tend to mat down and prevent air and water getting through. Oak leaves take forever to decompose so they are better being composted rather than spread over the beds. If you can shred some of your leaves with a lawn mower it is a great idea to add a couple of inches of that to your veggie bed.

The more you can do to improve your soil, the better your veggies (and other plants) will grow. Consider getting a soil test so that if any remedial action is necessary you have time for additives to work. For example, if your soil needs lime, it can take six months for an application of lime to change the ph of the soil. A healthy plant needs very little in the way of additional fertilizer. Weakened plants send out signals that insects and bacteria recognize and they swarm in to take advantage, then we have to reach for the insecticides but if we provide a healthy soil the plants will be in good shape and we won’t have to use insecticides. It is particularly important for those of us who live near the lake because we don’t want fertilizer and pesticides to run off into our lake.

Cut back your non woody perennials but do leave seed heads from cone flowers for the birds. Ornamental grasses with their wonderful plumes look lovely through the snow and provide sheltering places for many ground creatures. As you do this, collect some of the seed heads to use in dried arrangements over the holidays.






Until the ground freezes you can still plants spring flowering bulbs. You can also pot up a few to enjoy during January and February. The smaller daffodils such as the Tete-a-Tete are a good choice to pot up. Sometimes in our warm homes it is hard to keep the taller narcissus bulbs from flopping over when we bring them inside. You can also plant crocus, aconite and chionodoxa in the pot of daffodils to have a succession of flowering bulbs. . Remember to chill daffies for about 14 weeks and when you bring them in, bring them into a cool spot perhaps by an east window until they green up. I buy hyacinth bulbs for indoor bloom every year. I leave them in a paper bag in my unheated garage and in December start bringing them in three at a time. I have vases that I pop them in and just grow them on in water. You need a vase with a neck so that the bulb stays above the water and it is just the roots than grow down. Oh how I love that fragrance in January.

Before the weather turns really cold take a moment to clean out any seed starting pots you used. A solution of bleach (nine parts water to one part bleach) is a good choice for cleaning up any pots or garden equipment. You need to clean up seed starting pots to make sure that any spores of the dreaded damping off disease are killed otherwise your little seedlings next year could just fall over and quit on you.






Our next meeting is on Thursday, November 10 when we have our annual luncheon and auction which this year is being held at Lanzi’s on the Lake in Mayfield.






As always, I love to hear from you and our address is POBox 675, Northville, NY 212134.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

We had a delightful meeting to start off our garden club year. Jean Sweet, a Master Gardener of Fulton and Montgomery Counties, talked to us about planning and planting our bulb gardens. Jean showed us photos of the wonderful display of tulips she has in her our garden and showed us how to use color displays to make the best impact against our houses and landscape. The ideas she gave us and the photographs she showed us led to a great discussion of what we do in our own gardens and since it is now prime bulb planting season I think all of us came away with a determination to plant at least a few bulbs to cheer us up in the Spring.

Back in August I mentioned that I hadn’t seen many butterflies this year and I am pleased now, in September, that I am beginning to see a few more of them around. Actually now I have many, many Monarch butterflies, for some reason far more than I normally see. But amongst them I do see some of the other varieties. I had a lovely letter from Anna Froeder and she tells me that she too hasn’t had as many butterflies this year. She did tell me that it is the Ruby throated hummingbird and not the Rufous that we see in the Northeast. She checked with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and discovered that the Rufous is the most northern breeding of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska while the Ruby throated is the sole breeder in eastern North America. Anna wanted us to know about the Cornell lab which offers wonderful information on birds on-line at http://www.allaboutbirds.org. So check it out for great photographs and range maps. Thank you Anna, I loved your letter and thank you for the great information.

I hope you will all join us on Thursday, October 6 in the upstairs meeting room of the Northville Public Library at 1:30 p.m. Jeanine Loya will be giving a presentation on Cactus and Succulents. Jeanine is a member and past president of several Cactus and Succulent Societies and she and her husband maintain a 25’ by 25’ greenhouse with an extensive collection of these plants. Some of which she will bring for show and tell and some to raffle off to a few lucky people. We will have refreshments afterwards and a chance to chat with everyone.






On November 10 we are planning our annual luncheon and auction which this year will be held at Lanzi’s on The Lake in Mayfield. This is always a fun event and if you would like to join us contact any of our club members or drop me a line. The more the merrier!






You can contact us through P.O. Box 675, Northville, NY.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

One of the downsides of writing this column is that I have to think a month ahead. During the lovely days of August I have to think ahead to September and that is the beginning of Fall and the heating season and winter is just around the corner. So it takes a lot of effort on my part to think ahead to the cold weather!

Betsy Emery hosts the visitsacandaga.com website and she posts this column every month including lots of lovely photos. Also all the previous articles are archived if you need to look back at something. When I sent her last month’s column she sent me a link to http://www.visitsacandaga.com/Butterflies.htm. It shows butterflies for our region and has wonderful photos. Check it out. It is a very interesting website for our area so visit it regularly. Thanks, Betsy for all your hard work on the website.

It’s time to bring the houseplants back indoors. Give them a rinse to get rid of any hitchhikers and keep a close watch on them for a few days in case you missed any stragglers. Take cuttings from your coleus and begonias to enjoy new plants indoors throughout the winter. Let your amaryllis plants dry out completely. I take the bulb out of the pot and lay it on its side in a sheltered area so it doesn’t even get any dew. Then it comes inside in a cool, dark place until November or December depending when you want to bring it out again to bloom. Watch for frost warnings and be sure to dig up your tender bulbs such as dahlias, cannas and tuberous begonias. They store well in some vermiculite in a cool dark area.


It’s hard to think about saying good bye to the veggie garden and particularly those lovely tomato plants but you can cover them during a light frost and very often we get a couple of weeks of good weather after the first frost. Before the first hard frost why don’t you pick your tomatoes and put them in cardboard boxes. Keep them well separated and they will ripen slowly. You need to keep an eye on them because some will start to rot but it does keep your tomato harvest going for a few extra weeks. Still you have your broccoli, cauliflower and brussel sprouts that actually taste better after a frost. And lettuce and radishes are nice to have back in the garden after the hot weather.

The Fall garden looks lovely with the mums and asters now in full bloom. The big mums that we buy now from the garden centers are in full bloom and probably won’t survive the winter because they don’t have enough time to establish a root system to take them through but they are a lovely way to have color in the garden right up to the last minute. It’s a good time to dig and divide perennials now because unlike the mums which are just beginning their bloom season, perennials are beginning to shut down so see where you have some bare spots or where the daylilies, for example, are just getting to big for the area where you put them.

My favorite occupation at this time of year – as I am sure you all know by now! is planting spring blooming bulbs. I do moan and groan when the boxes of bulbs come in and think why on earth did I buy so many. But come spring it is all worth it. We will also be planting daffies at our Blue Star marker planting at the Bradt Building.

We look forward to getting together again after the summer break and our garden club meets on September 8. We meet in the basement of the Bradt building at 1:00 p.m. and Jean Sweet, a Master Gardener will discuss designing and planting our bulb gardens. We look forward to getting together again fter the summer break


The Master Gardeners will have exhibit space at the Fonda Fair again this year so stop by and see us in the Cooperative Extension building.


I also want to give you early notice of our community meeting on October 6 when Jeanine Loya will be giving a presentation on cactus and succulents. We hope all our friends will join us in the meeting room upstairs at the Northville Library. She will have plants for show and tell and plants to raffle off.


As always, questions can be sent to POBox 675, Northville, NY 12134.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

August is a month in which there is not a great deal to do in the garden. One of my favorite things to do is to take a walk around and see what is going on.



Astyanax

 I have noticed that there are far fewer butterflies in my yard this year and I have a butterfly friendly garden. Butterflies love lots and lots of sunshine so I am hoping with the beautiful sunshine we had in July that we should see more butterflies later in the season. Many butterflies are affected by late freezes. Many of them emerge in the early spring just as the trees are starting to leaf out but in a spring where we have a late freeze, the foliage and the caterpillars that were laid on them were frozen. The average life span for an adult butterfly is 20 to 40 days but many varieties have a lifespan less than that so with a late freeze any butterfly that survived the freeze didn’t have enough time to lay their eggs before the new foliage emerged.




Tiger Swallowtail

 Tiger and black swallowtail populations are especially devastated since they emerge very early. I have also read reports that the very bad rains this spring and early summer, along with colder than normal temperatures has probably delayed or upset their life cycle.







Such a fragile groups of insects but so wonderful in our gardens. It really is up to us to promte butterfly friendly gardens with plenty of both host and nectar plants. Also set up butterfly puddles. I have a large shallow tray filled with flat rocks. I keep water in it that is dissolved from the mineral salt blocks that are sold for deer. When ever I have an odd piece of fruit I put it in the tray to let it rot and this is all gourmet food for the butterflies.




Black Swallowtail Catterpiller

 If you have access to horse or cow manure, try putting a scoop in shallow spot in bright sunshine. Keep it almost wet and you will be surprised how many butterflies love this treat.






Early in the year I did see many butterflies, moths and bees. But now even the Rufous humming bird is a scarce sighting. This little bird is the only variety that we see in our area, the Rufous humming bird breeds farther north than any other species of hummingbird in the world.



Rufous Hummingbird

 Did you know it has an excellent memory for location so it can find flowers from day to day and even from year to year? Some birds return a second year to a place where a feeder was the previous year, even though that feeder may not be there now. They love the color red and love to check our large swaths of red flowers.






Aside from just enjoying our gardens and reaping all the harvest, there are few things we need to remember in August.

Change out the water in your bird bath weekly and keep it filled. Make sure you have as little standing water as possible because that becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes. You can buy products to add to your water to kill the larvae and they usually last about 30 days. I have rain barrels in my garden that I use for supplemental watering for my veggie garden and I treat those barrels throughout the year. My pollinator friendly garden does attract more birds and they help keep the mosquito population down. In fact I was bombarded early one evening a month or so ago by birds, I think swallow or purple martins. They were swooping over my yard and the water in the bay feasting on the insects.

Keep up with deadheading your annuals so they don’t turn their thoughts to seed production which is their natural life cycle. Watch your containers; by this time of the year their roots probably fill the containers so you may need to water daily. Containers will also need more in the way of fertilizer especially if you use liquid fertilizer. That’s only available to the plants for a day or two before it leached out by rains or watering. But don’t fertilize your perennials now, we want them to start maturing rather than put on new growth that can be killed by early frosts.

In the veggie garden, remember to pick your crops early.

Cucumbers and squash should be picked at six to eight inches. If you get hit by the squash vine borer, make a longitudinal slit up the stem and dig out the culprit then mound over the slit with soil and your plant will recover.






Our Garden Club reconvenes on September 8 at 1:00 p.m. at the Bradt Building. The topic will be a very timely one – Planning and Planting a Bulb Garden, led by Jean Sweet, a Master Gardener of Fulton and Montgomery Counties.






As always, any questions or comments can be sent to us at P.O. Box 675, Northville, NY.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

Oh my goodness, looking back I can remember a cold windy day in early June when our club went to visit Tom and Kathy O’s perennial gardens in Ephratah. Anna Johnson was all bundled up in a blanket she keeps in her car – smart woman! Still, the rains held off and Kathy greeted us with a hot cup of coffee. Their gardens are lovely, both sun and shade plants in wonderful combinations so we could see just what might work in our own gardens. I picked up several pots of a cranesbill geranium which makes a lovely mounded plant and blooms most of the summer. Those went in my front yard where I am trying to create a cottage/wildflower garden to encourage more birds and insects. I have had lots of butterflies so far this year and I hope they will use the parsely plants I have dotted about to shelter the chrysalis for next year.



Did you go see the flower show we had at the library – our members are so talented, the arrangements were spectacular. If ever you need help with any type of table design or designs for the holidays and are not sure how to go about it, do give one of our members a call. We are all happy to help in any way.

There is an upside to all the rain we have been having; my peonies are full of blooms this year and the astilbe are putting out many more flower heads, in another couple of weeks they will fill up the border with their color. All this rain also means I don’t have to go out and put more water on my water loving plants such as the cardinal flower, the Joe-Pye weed and the filipendulas. The cardinal flower does like to be wet most of the time but the others do well with an extra bucket of water now and then when the rain doesn’t cooperate.

However, you might want to keep a close eye on your tomato plants because all this rain could bring on early blight. If you see the bottom leaves start to yellow, then brown and fall off then early blight may be the cause. Feed them with a fertilizer with high nitrogen, or use bloodmeal, and that should stop the problem. Tomatoes are heavy users of nitrogen – think of all those leaves as the plant grows.

Now that most of your planting is done, it is a great time to walk around your garden and see how the plants are growing and perhaps what may need to be divided later in the year or what combinations are doing well and what is not doing so well. As you are walking around take a pair of scissors with you and continue to deadhead your spring flowering bulbs. Don’t tie up your daffy stalks, instead use daylilies or hosta or phlox to camouflage the foliage as it ripens. Mark areas where you need to add more bulbs so that when you plant in the fall you don’t dig up previously planted bulbs. Now matter how many times I tell myself to keep good records I can guarantee that I will spear an existing bulb when I start planting in September. My bulb catalogues have started arriving so I am walking the garden and making notes of what I need to order to fill out the bulb display.

Keep up with the weeding, the more you get it under control now, the less problems you will have later in the year. Watch for phlox and hollyhock seedlings for example, they will pop up in the most unexpected places and you can leave them and enjoy them or transplant them to a more convenient area. I have some lupine seedlings that I have no idea how they got where they are, those I am transplanting to my front garden. Lupines are best transplanted young, they really don’t like to be moved when they are bigger. Forsythia and lilacs should be pruned at this time of year. If you have large plants take out one fourth of the largest canes, these will be the older canes and this will encourage new growth for next year, keep your shrubs down in size and maintain a good shape to the plant. A light haircut to azaleas is beneficial too.



The garden club is taking a couple of months off to enjoy the summer months with friends and families visiting us. We are planning our program for the coming year and will meet again in September.



As always, questions and comments can be sent to POBox 675, Northville NY.

THE TAOIST TAI CHI GROUP OF NORTHVILLE

Terry Frank opened her house to our Tai Chi group in June so that we could all get together and say a huge THANK YOU to Margreet Monster who has been the leader and very patient instructor of our group for many years.



We meet at the BCON building every Monday and Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. Margreet leads us in yoga and Tai chi exercises for a half an hour and them we perform two sets of the 108 moves of Tai Chi. Margreet gives private instruction to beginners and those of us who want and need to perfect our moves at 8:30 a.m. Come see what we are all about.



Since ancient times, Taoists have been renowned for the cultivation of health and harmony in both body and spirit. To make the benefits of this tradition available to people everywhere, Master Moy Lin-shin, a Taoist monk, founded the International Taoist Tai Chi Society in 1970. Since then, members in 27 countries have found the Taoist Tai Chi™ Internal Arts of Health to be profoundly effective for people of all ages and abilities.



Margreet, we are so lucky you are willing to share your time and your knowledge and, from all of us, a very big thank you.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

Bonnie Preston was our featured speaker last month and we had a great time listening to all her advice with what to plant and how to design our areas. She showed us photographs of some of the gardens she has designed and they were gorgeous. Thank you Bonnie for a really interesting meeting.

As we are going out and buying annuals for our garden, here are a few tips to keep them in tip top shape for the season:

• Prepare the soil by cleaning out all the weeds and adding organic matter.

• Purchase annuals without flowers so that you can enjoy the blooms longer. Choose shorter bushy plants because the larger ones are more established already and may not transplant as well. If you do buy plants that have flowers already, pinch them off to encourage the plant to develop good roots first. Pinching out the first flowers will also result in bushier plants.

• A dark green color is generally a good indicator of a strong healthy plant. (Make sure that they are not light colored or yellowing. Nor should they have brown patches)

• Plant to the depth they were in the six packs and water them in thoroughly. Go back the next day and water again. Do not rush to plant them outside, wait until the night time temperatures are in the 50Fs. Remember that our last frost date in Fulton County is around the last week in May. Cool weather annuals such as alyssum and pansies can be set out earlier but impatiens will sulk if put out too soon and they may not recover.

• Keep up with watering, plants usually need about one inch of water a week but those in containers may need to be watered daily or even more than once a day.

• In early summer as the plants start forming flower buds begin a fertilizer program using a balanced formula such as 10-10-10. Read the label and apply as the manufacturer suggests throughout the summer and early fall. If you have some annuals that are slow to flower use a formula such as a 15-30-15 to stimulate flower production.

• In midsummer annuals with lots of tiny flowers such as alyssum start to look a little ragged and they will benefit from being cut back by a third to a half. Use this technique for alyssum, coreopsis, bachelor’s button, snapdragons and sweet William. Give them a dose of liquid fertilizer and they will set new buds very quickly. If your petunias are starting to get leggy with blooms just at the ends try cutting them back by half, they will also set out new growth and flowers and you will have a more compact plant full of flowers in no time.

• Deadhead your plants. Although there are annuals that are self-cleaning (begonias and calibrachoas for example) most will bloom better if you take off the dead flowers regularly. Pinch by hand or use sharp scissors or pruners and remove all the stem to keep the plant looking tidy.

• Towards the end of summer let some of your plants go to seed. Cut off the dead zinnia, marigold and gazania flowers and store them in a paper bag to reseed next year. If they are hybrid plants they may not come true to the parent but flowers are welcome in all colors and sizes – and the butterflies love them. Let the seeds of cosmos fall to the ground where they will sprout next year.

Come see our flower show at the Northville Public Library on June 8, 9 and 10. Our theme is ‘Flower Arranging by the Books’ and features arrangements inspired by Heidi by Johanna Spyri, Pinochoccio by C. Collodi, Charlotte’s Webb by E.B. White and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Our members are very talented so come, learn and enjoy. As always, we thank Michael Burnett our Library Director for agreeing to host our flower show.

On June 2 our club will be taking a trip to tour Tom and Kathy Oughton’s gardens in Ephrata, we will have lunch and install our officers for the coming year before our hiatus in the summer.

As always, questions and comments can be sent to POBox 675, Northville NY.

NORTHVILLE COMMUNITY GARDEN

Planting has begun! During May many people showed up to clean up the garden and start spreading the compost that was left over from last year. Later in the month we had our first planting day when we planted the early season crops such as kale, cabbage, kohlrabi, lettuce, etc. On June 4 we will have our second planting date to put in the warm season crops such as tomatoes, basil and squash. Come and enjoy the fun.



For all who have volunteered, please check your schedules to see when you have signed up for watering and weeding. These tasks do need to be kept up with so the garden looks good throughout the summer. If any of you bag your grass clippings – and do not use any herbicides – we are happy to use them as mulch in the garden. You can drop them off just inside the gate and we will take care of them.



Starting June 16 we will harvest crops weekly and deliver to the BCON building and the Reed Street food pantry. And in July look for us at the Farmers’ Market in Northville. The money we make from selling our produce provides the seed money for next year.



Our garden is located behind the Bradt Building, 412 South Main Street, Northville. It was started by the Girl Scouts in 2009 and they have created a beautiful and productive garden. We, as volunteers, are happy to reach out and help them.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

The Sunday Leader Herald published an interesting article in early April that was written by Dean Fosdick of the Associated Press. I thought this was well worth sharing with you all and it is entitled 10 common gardening mistakes.

Gardening is a forgiving hobby. You can always right any wrongs next growing season. The best way to prevent problems though, is with good planning. “Designing from the top of your head may work, but things most likely will work better if you write it down and do a simple drawing” said Jack McKinnon, a garden coach from San Francisco. “Think before you plant”. Most gardening failures result from simple things, he said. “like people who don’t fertilize, or if they do, put on to much. The same goes for people who don’t understand watering or add too much. Many tend to do their pruning with power tools and then overdo it”. Here are ten common gardening mistakes and ways to avoid them.

One: neglecting soil preparation. Test plant beds before you begin and again every few years to see if soil conditioners are needed. Add sand or peat moss to compacted, poorly drained ground to improve its
structure and encourage root growth.

 Two: Overplanting. Design with the size of mature plants in mind. Try succession planting in which early, cool-weather crops are harvested before later, less hardy plants reach maturity.

Tree: Flawed feeding. “mulch plants and they’ll be so much happier” said Tia Pinney, adult program coordinator at the Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary, in Lincoln Ma. “Supplement your soil, don’t just fertilize it”


Four: Improper watering. Too much water can be just as damaging as too little. Do a finger in the ground test to ensure the soil around the roots is most. Vegetables need about an inch and a half of water a week.

Five: Wrong location. Growing conditions change as trees and shrubs mature, creating different shadow patterns. Most plants need six to eight hours of sun a day to develop.

Six: Improper pest control. Don’t kill the good bugs, like pollinators, in an effort to eliminate the bad. “one thing we hear a lot is an attitude of ‘All I have to do is spray and that will cure it” said Mary Ann Ryan, master gardening coordinator with Penn State, Cooperative Extension in Adams County, Pa.

Seven: Faulty maintenance: Don’t set your cultivator (or hoe) too deep, damaging plant roots. Pull some weeds by hand.


Eight: Over pruning. As a rule, don’t remove more than 30 percent of the foliage from shrubs in one cutting. And don’t ‘top’ trees to control their height. ‘That reduces their life span rather than improves their health”, Ryan said.

Nine: Botched planting. Choose the right plant depth. “I know of one property where they put a tree with its root ball on the surface of the ground and then mulched around it up to the level of the trunk”, Ryan said. “People don’t know how to plant”.


Ten: Failing to start over. “Oftentimes, people let diseased things grow that should be pulled out, and it affects the health of the entire crop”, McKinnon said. Start with a small plot so you can correct mistakes more easily, the experts say. And look to your county extension office for support if you run into trouble. Garden coaches also can diagnose problems and suggest remedies, as can master gardeners and landscape designers.

Our next meeting is on Thursday, May 5 when Bonnie Preston will discuss what makes a good design and will talk about how to handle those small and awkward spaces that pop up in our gardens.






As always if you have questions drop us a line at POBox 675, Northville, NY 12134.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

We had a really interesting meeting in March thanks to Jim Hoffman of Sand Flats Orchard. He talked about how to prevent many of the diseases we have in our gardens right from the start. Choosing the seed is important because many companies are providing seeds that have built in seed resistance. He discussed many aspects of vegetable growing and of course, since Sand Flats is a big orchard, he was able to help us with many questions about fruit trees. We were delighted to have him visit and share his expertise. We are also looking forward to visiting his operation both in spring when the greenhouses open in late April and again in the Fall during apple and pumpkin season. Do check out his website at http://www.sandflatsorchard.com for all their offerings.

We still need patience in the garden at this time of year, most of our area has had at least four feet of snow over our gardens and the soil will take time to warm up. Still you can take advantage of the cool weather to finish up any tree pruning that needs to be done and for using a dormant oil spray on your fruit trees to control insect infestation if you need to. Try to wait for a day above 40 degrees F and spray on a day without wind. Both these chores should be done before the buds start to swell. When the snow has gone – it will won’t it? move the winter mulch back from the crown of the plants and you can also fluff up the mulch which makes it look better and may mean you won’t have to spend money to lay down more mulch this season. As the buds begin to swell on your roses get out your clippers and prune the hybrid teas. Cut just above an outward facing bud so that new canes grow out from the center of the plant. Cut off any dead tissue, any stems less than a pencil width and any branches that cross each other.

Feed your roses with a shovel full of compost or if you prefer a granular feeding of a balanced fertilizer such as a 10-10-10. Check for any perennials that have heaved out over winter and gently push them back into the soil. Start your spring clean up and when you are cutting back your perennials take the material to your compost pile to make black gold for next year. I do compost over winter and I have a bucket that I keep outside my back door.

Unfortunately my neighbor, Chloe, a gorgeous short haired pointer also loves my compost bin and she has a fantastic sense of smell. She and I have words about whose compost it is and why she should not toss it all out of the bucket and she listens to me with her tail wagging a mile a minute and next day comes back and does it all again! So far, she is winning but then again maybe I shouldn’t encourage her with dog biscuits!

If you didn’t add any organic matter to your veggie garden in the Fall then by all means do it now. Depending on the weather and soil temperature you should be able to plant peas from seed around mid month and maybe you will be able to put in some of your cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli seedlings late in the month. Even if you buy your transplants do take the time to make sure they are hardened off before setting them in your garden. Many of the transplants are grown in greenhouses and may not be ready for our harsh climate without being introduced to the cool air a little bit at a time. Take them outside during the day and set them in a sheltered spot for about three hours. Do this for three days and then increase the time they spend outside by a couple of hours a day. Gradually move them into brighter sun until after about 10 days they can spend the whole day outside.

I’ve been hearing more birdsong in the last few weeks; I think some of the birds have started to migrate back to us. Food will be slim for them with all the snow around so keep your feeders filled. They will have nesting in mind so clean out your bird boxes; most birds prefer an empty bird box rather than using some other bird’s nest. Also take your suet feeder, clean it up and fill it full of dryer lint, pet hair, scraps of cloth and any other nest building material you can think of.



As you know Cornell Cooperative Extension moved recently and their new address is 50 East Main Street, Canajoharie, NY 13317. The phone number is 518-673-5525 and the Master Gardeners can be reached at that number.



Our next meeting is on April 7 when we are having a teaching session on flower arranging.



As always if you have questions drop us a line at POBox 675, Northville, NY 12134.

NORTHVILLE GIRL SCOUTS COMMUNITY GARDEN

As you may know a couple of years ago the Girls Scouts started a community garden behind the Bradt Building in Northville. This project came about because the Girl Scouts discovered that the local food pantries were experiencing a significant increase in families needing assistance due to the overall poor economic conditions. After talking with various local groups the girls also discovered that there was a lack of fresh vegetables available and thus the idea of a community garden was born.



The goal is to provide the opportunity for many Girl Scouts and other members of our community, to learn the essential skills of growing food, to provide for people in need, to convert the garden into a ‘sustainable garden’ and to make our community as well as the world a better place.



There are 12 beds with at least two dozen varieties of vegetables which are harvested weekly and delivered to the food pantries. To help make the garden sustainable, the girls also sell the produce at the food markets in Northville.



This year the Girl Scouts are reaching out to the community as a whole and asking for our help. The need is great and during the summer months there is a lot of produce to care for, harvest, wash and deliver every week. If we can get many volunteers to give just two hours a month then our big garden becomes easily manageable. Please come to our open meeting on April 15 at the Methodist Church in Northville at 5:30 p.m. Meet some new friends and even if you don’t know a shoot from a root you will find there are plenty of ways you can help.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

Oh March when winter is slowly relinquishing its grasp suggesting warm days and sunny skies ahead. I have started quite a few perennial seeds for my garden. Those that take months before they can be put in the garden but now is the time to think about starting vegetable seedlings. I am sure you have had your seeds in a cool dry place over winter, sorted and catalogued so that you know which seeds performed well for you. If so you are better organized than I am! Seeds can be saved from year to year and you can germinate most seeds even if they are some years old.

Corn, onions and leeks, parsley, parsnips and peppers have a good life span of about two years. Beans and peas, the cabbage family, carrots, eggplant, the squash family and tomatoes will hold for about four years and cucumbers, lettuce, melons and spinach can last up to five to six years. If you are in any doubt test the germination percentage before you plant. Take ten seeds from your packet and spread them on a wet paper towel. Put them in a paper bag and leave it at room temperature for up to two weeks. If only one or two seeds germinate then you need to buy more seed but if six or seven germinate then you’re good to go. If you have seeds that didn’t germinate well then sow them more thickly then you would normally to make up the difference.

Our frost free date is around the end of May so if you are thinking about starting seedlings now you need to count back from the frost free date to see when to start your plants. Most seed packets give you good growing information including when to start the seeds in relation to the time to transplant. Tomatoes, for example, need about six to eight weeks of growing before transplanting outside so there is no point in starting them early unless you have very good growing conditions indoors. A small transplant will catch up very quickly to one held inside for 12 weeks so you won’t lose out on your early crop by delaying your seed starting.

Seeds from the cabbage family can be started now because they can be planted out before the frost free date. If they are sufficiently hardened of, they can withstand a light freeze and the plants grow better in the cool, bright days of spring. Parsley, onions and leeks are also good seeds to start now. Remember too, that you don’t need to start a lot of seeds at a time. Think ahead, what are you going to do when you have twenty heads of lettuce ready to pick? Can you really eat 12 heads of cabbage in a week? So plant a few seeds now, and in a couple of weeks start some more. That way you will have plants maturing over the season and your neighbors will thank you for not dumping pounds of said cabbage on their door step in the middle of the night.

As the snow finally melts away and your soil begins to dry out run a hoe over the garden to cut off the early weeds. If you do this every couple of weeks and then use a mulch over your garden during the growing season you will have far fewer weed problems than usual. You will know when the soil is ready to be worked if you pick up a clump of soil and try to crumble it in your hand. If it stays a sold wet mass then leave well alone. You want a clump of soil that separates easily. It’s a good time to get your soil tested too to see if you PH levels are within range.

As we and our pets start to spend more time outdoors remember that ticks are active on warm winter days even when we have snow on the ground. So be sure to check them and yourself when coming inside. Warm water doesn’t kill ticks effectively on your clothes but an hour in a hot clothes dryer will kill them.






Our Garden Club meets on Thursday, March 3 when Jim Hoffman of Sand Flats Orchard will talk to us about understanding the insects and diseases we get in our vegetable garden.


As always if you are interesting in joining us or have a question just drop us a line at POB 675, Northville NY 12134.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

My house is full of the scent of hyacinths with the bulbs that I bought in September, kept in the garage for 12 weeks and brought out gradually so that during February and March I can enjoy the bulbs while waiting for the weather to warm up until I can go back in the garden. I will let the bulb foliage yellow and then plant them in the garden. They will flower again next year though they won’t be as big. I brought my amaryllis bulbs out of dormancy at the end of December and enjoyed beautiful blooms in late January into February. We have lots of opportunities for flowering plants at this time of year; in addition to the bulbs, the Christmas cactus is probably in its second or third bloom for some of you; kalanchloe is a lovely winter blooming flower, also gloxinias and poinsettias to name just a few. Don’t let the cloudy skies and snow on the ground stop you from having a house full of color at this time of year. I don’t know about you but I need it at this time of year.


There are things you can do for the garden right now: if you didn’t sharpen your tools last year now is a good time to get that chore done. It’s also a good time to organize your tools, perhaps you have too many spades or forks? Donate them to a community garden or set them aside for the village wide garage sale. You can build window boxes ready for the pansies and later for the annuals. Do you have an old window taking up space in your garage? Set it aside so that you can use it as a cold frame in the spring. It’s a great place to put lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower etc to grow on in the sunny but cool days of spring. Pruning and shaping your shrubs now will give you stronger plants and better blooms in the summer. Don’t touch your lilacs or forsythia or other spring blooming shrubs because you can cut off the flower buds for the year. They should be pruned right after bloom, cutting out one fourth of the older wood. Empty your bird feeders and clean them out with a weak solution of bleach. Let them sit for an hour to let the chlorine dissipate before refilling them. This gets rid of any wet seed at the bottom which can grow bacteria – not good for our feathered friends.

Make lists of what you want to grow, both annuals and perennials and work out where you are going to plant your vegetables, remembering that if you can rotate your crops it is much better for the soil since different plants take up different nutrients from the soil.



When you are deciding what perennials to grow in your garden take note of the cold hardiness zones that apply to the plant. This is a really useful reference and can make the difference between a plant you will have for many years and one that gives up after the first winter. The USDA created a map that divides the country into zones with the common denominator being the average minimum coldest temperature we can expect in the winter. They also show heat zones but in our area we don’t have to worry about that!

In our area we range from zones 3a through 4b: 3a is -40F to -35F; zone 3b is 35F to -25F, zone 4a is -30F to -25F and zone 4b is -25F to -20F. I live on the Great Sacandaga so I grow plants that can handle -30F, that’s a big ice cube out there sending cold weather my way. Every garden will have micro climates where you will be able to grow a plant that’s marked for zone 5 and the snow cover that we generally get also protects the plants. I have buddleia bushes that are rated as zone 5 but they survive in my garden because I usually have two feet of snow protecting them. The downside is that when we get a cold winter with no snow cover, then my buddleias will probably give up the ghost.



Our Garden Club will reconvene on Thursday, March 3 when Jim Hoffman of Sand Flats Orchard will talk to us about understanding the insects and diseases we get in our vegetable garden.



As always if you are interesting in joining us or have a question just drop us a line at POB 675, Northville NY 12134.